Any consideration of increasing student militancy must begin with an understanding of the structural changes that have occured in British universities since the second World War. The major change has been the increased number of students engaged in higher education. Before the second World War the number of students never rose above 70,000 but by 1967 had reached over 300,000. In 1967 students constituted 11% of their own age group - this compares with 2.7% before the second World War. A significant change in intellectual employment has occured, the majority of university graduates are no longer guaranteed admittance to an elite professional class. They will mainly become white collar employees of the state or industry and consequently part of the great mass of salaried workers. What we have seen over the last few years is a tremendous transformation of the productive forces which has meant the re-integration of intellectual labour power into productive labour, mens' intellectual capacities becoming the prime productive force in society. The result has been the emergence of a new social grouping.
The vast increase in the number of students should be seen against successive governments failure to allocate sufficient increases in expenditure to provide the lecturers or the material facilities that students require. There has been a growth in the ratio of students to lecturers and in some cases the physical overcrowding of students in university buildings. Even worse has been the unwillingness of the successive governments to raise grants even to keep pace with rising prices. Many students, consequently are living in poverty.
Capitalist educational systems have always faced one problem. The problem of harmonising two contradictory necessities: the necessity of developing human capabilities to fulfil the changing manpower requirements of an advancing technology and the - political - necessity of ensuring that this kind of development does not bring on any increase of consciousness of the individual, provoking him to challenge the existing division of labour and distribution of power. The tremendous expansion of universities has revealed a latent conflict between the supremacy of the liberal university and the economically necessary technocratic education. The revolts at Hull, Essex, Bristol, etc., have revealed the essentially dynamic character of these contradictions.
The non-existence in Britain of any revolutionary tradition and the complete failure of the political left has had unique consequences. The fragmentary nature of the socialist student movement and that more students participate in anti-Vietnam war activities are two. It is therefore of value to analyse alternative courses of action open to socialist students. [illegible] it is worth [illegible] something about the possibilities of changing society through the present political system. Many socialists still believe that change can come through the Labour Party. However most students are not allowed to join the Labour Party and if they are, and show any independence of the Party line are likely to be removed. An example of this was after the expulsion of Ken Coates from the West Nottingham Constituency Labour Party. When the ward Labour Party, to which he was a member, voted against his expulsion the student members of that ward were removed, within a month, en bloc. At a time when the British Labour Government is the executor of British capitalism, when many young people are going on the streets to protest against British complicity in the American military expedition in Vietnam. It is to say the least absurd for student socialists to commit themselves to such a party.
Secondly although I think it is essential and will prove of great value in learning tactics, we must have some reservations about involvement in industrial action. Clearly, however much we can learn tactically, however much we are behind workers in their struggles, however much we strive for reciprocal contacts, all of which are extremely important, we will never be the subject of a real growth of consciousness in these activities. This is so because it is only when one experiences the contradictions, the objective conditions of living the sort of life a docker, a building worker, or an engineer lives, that the consciousness that results from that life and fights over the contradictions at the centre of any dispute will develop. The validity of the struggle may be universally apparent intellectually but it will only be apparent existentially to the worker. It is in the contradictions of one's own working situation that we can expect to develop this consciousness. It is in fact with this strategy of looking inward that students have advanced recently.
It is in this role I see the Revolutionary Socialist Student Federation. As being able to insert itself into the contradictions of higher education. There is no doubt students are coming into conflict with their milieu, and recent events in the universities indicate that a process of qualitative change in the nature of demands put forward by students is taking place. What we must demand is the right to take part - and I believe that it should be a decisive part - in the design of courses and the structure of academic teaching, so that we can design our future role in our future society. This presents us with very new challenges. We must learn what it is we will need to learn. It follows that we must have a conception of society that we want our knowledge to serve. Among the obvious changes linked to academic design, we will need to engage in a struggle against examinations - the present ultimate control over academic life. It is in this struggle that I see socialist students. In the struggle to open up, keep open, and extend the contradictions in the educational system.